


Rose Gardens

by Shadowmatic



Series: I Dreamt of Rain [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Characters to be added, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Alternating Point of View, Asexual Cody, Asexual Obi-Wan Kenobi, Asexual Rex, Canon? What Canon?, Clone Culture & Tradition, Force Shenanigans, Found Family, Jedi Culture & Tradition, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trans Obi-Wan Kenobi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:55:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23395861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowmatic/pseuds/Shadowmatic
Summary: Scenes from Desert Rose from the point of view of other characters.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker/Padme Amidala, CC-2224 | Cody & CT-7567 | Rex, CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody/CT-7567 | Rex, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi/CT-7567 | Rex, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: I Dreamt of Rain [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679470
Comments: 43
Kudos: 415





	1. Chapter 1

Cody very nearly tripped over his General. He had only come into the General’s tent because he had said that he wanted a briefing at twenty hundred, and then he hadn't shown up.

“Sir?” Cody knelt next to his General and gently shook his shoulder. The General didn’t stir. Cody, decidedly not panicking, commed Barker. 

“Yes sir?” Barker answered immediately. 

“The General has collapsed, I need you to send a stretcher to his tent. He’s still breathing, I don’t know what’s wrong.” He was not panicking. There was no need to panic.

“Yes sir.” As Cody flicked his comm off, he could hear Barker start to bark orders at his staff.

Cody reached for General Kenobi’s pulse point and picked up the datapad that was on the ground. 

He didn’t mean to read it, he really didn’t, but he skimmed a few words and immediately had to go up to the top and start to read it in full. Cody’s General had very recently sent an urgently worded communication to General Ti on the subject of an unknown entity being able to control Cody and his brothers without their choice in the matter. The further Cody read, the more perturbed he became. There were chips, Cody had known about that, but they had never been told what they did. 

Other commanders that Cody had had in his training would have been glad to have an army that wouldn’t be able to disobey. They often found ways to punish them for things that were barely out of line. Cody’s General on the other hand, seemed as perturbed as Cody himself was. 

“Sir.” Stars brushed into the tent. Finch, who was not on the medical staff, followed behind him with the other end of the stretcher. “Did you see him collapse?” He asked, kneeling next to the General.

“No. I found him like this.” 

“Do you know when the last time he ate was?” 

“Around fourteen hundred hours.” Cody said. Stars asked Cody more questions, but Cody didn’t have very many answers for him. 

They loaded him on to the stretcher and left. Cody set the datapad down on the General’s desk and followed after them. He would have to comm Admiral Darklighter and get her to contact General Windu, as per instruction. 

Nobody could find anything wrong with the General. By all accounts, nothing should have happened, but there they were, waiting on reinforcements by the 91st. Cody would be a bit more annoyed about having to call them in if not for the fact that that meant that there was another General coming, and he might know what was wrong with their General. 

Cody stared down at his General and decided that he never wanted to see him in the medical bay again if he could help it. 

“This had better be some wacky Force shit.” Cody muttered. He glanced around, making sure that no one was watching him, and very gently patted the General’s hand. General Kenobi was the best commanding officer that he had ever had, though he was also the strangest, and Cody was not going to let him down. 


	2. Chapter 2

Cody was unsure how he was supposed to react to his General sitting on the floor in a corridor. He walked up to him and glanced out the window, trying to figure out what he was looking at. 

“Sir.” Cody said. If his General had fallen asleep, that was one thing. If he had passed out again, that was another. Cody wasn’t sure why else he would be on the floor.

“Ah, Commander.” Cody’s General looked up, and Cody felt a jolt of happiness that he was okay. Not that he really thought he wouldn’t be. All four of the medics, no matter how reluctantly, had cleared him for active duty, and Cody didn’t want to be the one to take him back to med bay. “Come join me.”

Cody sat in the spot that the General indicated, trying to mimic his position. The floor was not for sitting on, and Cody didn’t understand what his General was doing, but he would try. 

They sat in silence for several minutes. Cody kept finding himself looking at the General in the window’s reflection, making sure that he was okay more than anything, he looked like he needed more sleep, before catching himself and looking away again. He wondered if he should tell him that he had read the General’s files. He had broken classification rules, and chain of command rules by doing that, and it was a punishable offence. 

“Is something bothering you?” The General asked. 

“No sir.” Cody lied. There were many things bothering him, but that wasn’t for the General. 

“Please, call me Obi-Wan.” 

“Sir?” Cody frowned. This was also breaking the rules of the chain of command. The General smiled. His smile didn’t seem like it was mocking, only kind. 

“We aren’t in a situation of command. And I would rather you call me by my name Commander.” Cody muffled a laugh. There were so many things wrong with that statement that he didn’t even know where to begin, but an order was an order.

“I will try s- Obi-Wan.” Hells. This was going to be hard, and what qualified as a situation of command anyways? If you had to ask Cody, he would say any situation in which you interacted with a commanding officer, but clearly that didn’t apply here. “But if I’m going to call you by your first name, then you should really call me by mine.”

Hopefully that was an appropriate response. Cody didn’t know. 

“Of course Cody.” The General, Obi-Wan, smiled again. Cody couldn’t name the feeling in the pit of his stomach, but it felt mainly like anxiety about what Obi-Wan thought of him. It was different though.

“If I may,” Cody hesitated, he needed to tell Obi-Wan about the files. “Permission to speak freely?”

“Permission granted.” 

“When I found you, I saw the files that you were sending to General Ti, and.” Cody closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. More than anything, more than his anxiety, he was so angry about this. “Could we really be turned against you so easily and quickly?”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan didn’t seem angry that Cody had read them, and he had been given permission to speak, so he pressed on. 

“Did it happen in your vision?” Cody didn’t know much about the Force, but he didn’t think that General Windu was lying about the vision, and Cody was sure that Obi-Wan had seen something. The look in his eyes had changed, deepened until he reminded Cody less of the older brothers and more of Jango. 

“Yes.” Obi-Wan repeated, quieter this time. 

“Is there a way to make sure that doesn’t ever happen?” Cody could feel the anger building. They were his brothers, and to make them not themselves was something that Cody would never wish on anyone. 

Obi-Wan told him that they working on it, that he agreed with him, that several of the other Generals did too. 

“It is being kept as secret as possible right now, as it would be unwise to reveal that we have this information before it is time.” The General, Obi-Wan, said. Still no sign of anger. 

“Right. Thank you.” Cody, still waiting for punishment, couldn’t help but flinch as Obi-Wan reached over and laid his hand on top of Cody’s. His hands were cold and Cody wanted to bundle him up and take him back to bed. He didn’t move. 

“You and your brothers are worth just as much as anyone else.” Obi-Wan said. Cody blinked. That was one of the nicest things that anyone had ever said to Cody, not that he had much life to go on. He didn’t know the appropriate response to that, so he just didn’t respond. 

They sat there for a long time, staring out the window, not moving, before the - Obi-Wan stood and said goodnight. Cody listened to his footsteps until they faded before he moved. He could still feel the General’s hand on top of his own.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Evidently I am not good at planning, or even staying consistent within my own story. Anakin’s pronouns were screwed up in this chapter, and so I have fixed it. Hopefully.

Anakin didn’t understand what was going on. When Obi-Wan had first seen her, she had felt his fear in the Force, and while it had receded the longer that Anakin had talked to him, it was still present, lingering around the edges of their bond, sharp and heavy. 

Then Vokara Che injected him with something, and he just collapsed, his shields coming up and locking around him so that even Anakin couldn’t feel him. 

“Hmm.” Vokara sounded slightly concerned. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“What do you mean?” Anakin asked, squeezing Obi-Wan’s hand tightly in her own. 

“He wasn’t supposed to pass out.” Che said, looking at Anakin. “Please, do not break your Master’s fingers, I would hate to have to explain that to him when he woke up.” Anakin wanted to protest that Obi-Wan wasn’t her master, that she was free, but that was just fear talking more than anything. She had come to understand that that word meant different things in the Jedi Order, even if she didn’t like it. 

In the meantime, Che had been trying to comm someone. 

“I suppose I will comm the Commander.” She said absently. “Given that Mace won’t pick up.”

Anakin got up and started to pace, not listening to Che’s conversation. None of this made any sense. It seemed like everyone knew what was going on except for her. She hadn’t even know that there was something going on. And what was with the fear? Che was moving around in the room, moving around Obi-Wan, but Anakin ignored her. 

A few moments later, there was a gentle knock on the door, and Obi-Wan’s Commander, who Anakin had yet to meet, stepped through, dressed in his soft shell uniform for some odd reason. 

“What can you tell me about your General’s vision?” Che asked, and Anakin looked at her sharply. Obi-Wan had had a vision? 

“Very little sir, he hasn’t said much to me on the matter.” The Commander, Anakin thought his name might have been Cody, but she found that she didn’t really care, said. “General Windu would know better than I.”

The two of them spoke for a few minutes before Anakin couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Why didn’t anyone tell me that Obi-Wan was hurt?” She snapped. 

“Anakin.” Che said, warning in her voice. 

“No. He’s my,” Anakin hesitated on the word. “He’s Obi-Wan, someone should have told me.” The Commander should have commed her, or Windu. Somebody. 

“Anakin.” Che repeated. “Please calm down.”

“Calm down?” Anakin demanded. “Obi-Wan is hurt and you want me to calm down?” 

“I want you to calm down before you hurt him more.”

“How would his anger hurt him?” The Commander asked, and Anakin wanted to snarl. Clearly this clone knew nothing of the Jedi, and he didn’t deserve Obi-Wan. 

“Whatever happened, whatever he saw, was-“ Che was going to make Obi-Wan seem weak, Anakin just knew it, and Obi-Wan was never weak. 

“It’s Obi-Wan.” She snapped, interrupting Che. “My anger has never hurt him before.”

Obi-Wan whimpered softly, and Anakin immediately turned towards him, anger falling away. He was curled up in fetal position, and his face was full of pain.

“Obi-Wan.” Che touched Obi-Wan’s shoulder gently, and Obi-Wan opened his eyes, staring up at her. The fear was stronger again now. “Can you tell me where you are?”

“The Jedi Temple. The Healing Wing.” Obi-Wan said, and his words sounded forced, as though it pained him to say even that. 

“And can you tell me what happened?”

“You gave me, whatever it was you needed to give me. And then I passed out again?” Obi-Wan sounded unsure, and he should never sound unsure.

“Yes.” 

“I’m getting pretty tired of passing out on people.” Obi-Wan joked. 

“So am I sir.” Cody said. Obi-Wan rolled back over and sat up slowly. Anakin reached over and made to take Obi-Wan’s hand. Obi-Wan flinched. He flinched, like he had when he’d first seen Anakin. 

“Did. Did something happen to me, in your vision?” Anakin asked, drawing her hand away and setting it in her lap. She didn’t want to hurt him, she really didn’t. 

“You died. It was my fault.” Obi-Wan’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper. Anakin wanted to pull him into a hug, but Obi-Wan didn’t always appreciate that. 

“Shit Obi, no wonder you looked scared.” Obi-Wan opened his arms, and Anakin very carefully wrapped her arms around him. “And I bet you at least twenty credits that it wasn’t remotely your fault.” 

They stayed like that for a long moment before Che very gently chased both Anakin and the Commander out of the Healing Wing. Anakin gave the Commander a long and thoughtful look before heading down to their quarters. She had to get some more yarn, and that meant that she had to go out to the markets, and that was more productive than moping around waiting for Obi-Wan.


	4. Chapter 4

Cody stepped into the Officers’ Quarters and almost immediately there came a shout from the mess.

“If you’re not Cody, a General, or an emergency, you can f-go away.” Wolffe shouted, and Cody stifled a laugh at how obviously he was trying not to swear. 

“And if I am Cody?” He set his bag inside the nearest empty set of quarters and ducked into the tiny mess that they were afforded. 

“Then you need to tell us where the fuck you’ve been.” The four of them, Fox, Rex, Wolffe, and Bly, who Cody hadn’t realized was on Coruscant, were all sat at the table. Wolffe exaggerated a frown to punctuate his statement. 

“Uh, at the Jedi Temple.” Cody said, rubbing a hand through his hair self consciously, and sitting down next to Rex. 

“Yeah, Wooley mentioned.” Rex said, taking Cody’s hand in his own. “Your debrief took a while then?”

“Not anymore so than normal.” Cody said. “I was on my way here when I was called back.”

“Your General must find trouble as easily as mine does.” Rex said. 

“He’d only been out of the med bay for one ten-days, and now he’s back in.” Cody sighed and dropped his head onto Rex’s still armoured shoulder. He wished that he had had time to put his armour back on. He felt too exposed without it. 

“Ponds said that it was some kind of weird Force shit?” Bly asked, standing. 

“That’s one way to put it.” Despite the debrief Cody still wasn’t sure how much he was allowed to say, or even what had happened. “It wasn’t even normal weird Force shit, apparently it was weird weird Force shit.”

“That sucks.” Fox said. “Is he okay though?” 

“He was awake and talking. He may still be in the jettis’ medbay though.” Cody said. Bly handed him a ration pack and he nodded his thanks.

Eventually Cody needed some space to organize his own thoughts, and so he ducked out of the conversation, and out of the room. He was a little tipsy, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do some thinking. 

He got a datapad out of his bag and started to make a list of questions. A couple of minutes later, he gave up, because he kept thinking of more and more questions, some of which he was unsure he would ever be able to get an answer to.

“Cody?” Rex poked his head in the door. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah.” 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Rex asked, resting a hand on Cody’s shoulder. 

“Okay enough.” Cody said, reaching up and resting his hand on Rex’s. 

“You look tired.” Cody stood and reached for the straps on Rex’s breastplate. He wasn’t technically even supposed to be in the Officers’ Quarters, but the Vode had a firm policy of letting their brothers gather comfort from where they could. 

Rex’s armour removed, and Cody’s soft shell uniform hung up on a hook, they curled up together in Cody’s bunk, Rex warm against Cody’s back. 

“Do you want to tell me what you’re worried about?” Rex never seemed to be plagued by the same kinds of things that Cody was, and Cody welcomed a perspective that was outside of his own head sometimes. 

“Is there a way to have a situation that is not a situation of command with your commanding officer?” Cody asked. He was aware that the question didn’t make much sense, but he wasn’t sure how else to ask it. 

“What prompted this question?” Rex asked, sounding faintly amused.

“General Kenobi asked me to call him by his first name when we weren’t in command situations, but, I don’t. I don’t know when those are.”

“Ask?” Rex offered, and Cody glared at the wall. “I mean, ask him when you are in one of those situations what might constitute as a command situation.” 

“You’ve always been better at talking to your commanding officers.” Cody said, and Rex’s arm around his waist tightened just slightly. If he hadn’t been, Cody knew that they wouldn’t be there. Cody was never one to ask for hugs, but Rex had asked, and their relationship had progressed from there. 


	5. Chapter 5

Padmé startled a little bit at the knock on the door. She knew Anakin was going to be arriving early, but she had gotten lost in her own thoughts. 

“Good afternoon.” Padmé said, and Anakin looked up and grinned sheepishly. Padmé had to resist the urge to kiss him right then and there in the doorway. 

“Hi.” He held out a bouquet of flowers. “I know that flowers mean a lot on Naboo, I hope I got them all right.”

“It’s perfect Ani.” The flowers were beautiful, primarily blues and light purples, with some pink scattered in, and every single one of them had a meaning. Padmé, who had always loved secret languages and codes, even before she had decided long ago to run for Queen, knew what the flowers meant. It was a declaration of love, and of trust, and Padmé appreciated more than anything the research that he must have put into it. 

“I’m glad. Obi-Wan also sent a gift and his apologies for not being able to make it.” Anakin reached into his robes and rather remarkably, pulled out an entire cookie tin. 

“Oh he is a gem.” Padmé peeked inside the container and found that not only had Obi-Wan, or possibly Anakin, or both, remembered her favourite type of cookie, but Obi-Wan had also gone through the trouble of actually making some for her. She was sure he hadn’t been back long, and the fact that he had thought of her meant a lot. She knew how busy he was. 

Anakin smiled, fidgeting with his cuffs. 

“I am being a terrible host. Come in.” Padmé steered Anakin into her quarters, setting the cookies down in the kitchen and rummaging through the cupboards for a vase. 

“You’re a lovely host, Angel.” Anakin reassured her. “Can we, can we um, talk about something?” Anakin was definitely hovering now, non literally, though Padmé found you could never assume with Jedi. 

“Of course. Is something wrong?” Padmé pulled out a vase that she thought might be the right size and turned to Anakin. 

“No. It’s just. I’ve been um, questioning my gender for a while now.” Anakin’s shoulders hunched. “And I. I’m pretty sure I’m a woman. If you could use she/her pronouns for me, that would be great.” Padmé set both of the objects she was holding down and pulled her partner into a hug. It surprised her a little bit, but she knew that the most important thing was to be understanding. 

“Thank you so much for telling me.” She said. She had never come out to anyone as bisexual, mainly because she was afraid of the political repercussions. On Naboo it didn’t matter if you were trans or any other flavour of queer, but other people had issues with it. “Do you want to change your name?”

“No.” Anakin clung to her, as though she was afraid that Padmé was going to run away. “I mean, I’ve just come to an actual conclusion about my gender this ten-days, and maybe I’ll change my mind, but it’s my name.”

“Of course.” Padmé rubbed a hand up and down Anakin’s back. “I’m not going to leave you just because you’re a woman, Ani.”

“I wasn’t worried.” Anakin scoffed a little, but Padmé didn’t have to be a Jedi to read the anxiety in the hug they were still engaged in. 

“Of course not.” Padmé said. She stepped back, and Anakin let her. She tried the vase, just to be sure, and started to fill it with water. “Have you told Obi-Wan yet?” He was the closest thing Anakin had to any parental figure, and Padmé knew that he meant a lot to Anakin. He meant a lot to her, and he hadn’t effectively raised her, though he had saved her planet. 

“Not yet.”

“You should.”

“I know. He’s just been distant recently.”

“You’re right. I’ll tell him later.” Anakin smiled, and this time Padmé couldn’t resist the urge to kiss her. 

“You’d better.” Padmé said as she pulled back. The doorbell rang to announce another guest. 

“I promise, Angel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy belated Star Wars day fellow nerds.
> 
> I’m sorry if Padmé reads weird, I have trouble writing characters that aren’t in some way very anxious, I was going to do one from Rex’s point of view (it may yet happen), but it wasn’t working out. Padmé went a little better.
> 
> Also I was inspired for the bit about the flowers by Flowers for the Emperor by Fiallerill, which is a great fic, and it’s part of a great series.


	6. Chapter 6

The General had seemed slightly distracted throughout the entire briefing, so when he left, Cody followed him. 

It surprised him slightly when Kenobi stopped at entry to one of the hangers where things were still being moved around. He could hear his brothers singing, and he wanted to go out and yell at them to shut up, but the General didn’t seem to mind. 

In fact, he was just staring off across the hanger as though he wasn’t even seeing it. 

“Is something the matter sir?” Cody asked, when the General shut his eyes and kept them closed. 

“No.” His voice was thick with some sort of emotion, but this was a command situation for sure, so Cody didn’t ask. He paused for a moment. “Once we are actually underway, we will have another meeting with Anakin and the 501st.”

“Yes sir.” It took Cody a moment to place Anakin as General Skywalker, who had yelled, and then apologized, something that Cody had never seen. He had thought he had been prepared for Jedi, but he was not. The General clapped Cody on the shoulder like they were brothers, and then turned. “Do you know General Skywalker well sir?” Cody hadn’t really meant to ask, but he wanted to spend a little more time with the General. Obi-Wan turned back towards Cody and smiled like he had that day in his quarters. 

“I raised her, so I would say we know each other fairly well.” That didn’t make much sense to Cody. What did raising mean, beyond lifting up? The General seemed to think it was an adequate answer, as he turned and walked away. 

Cody watched him go, robes billowing around him, and stored away General Skywalker’s pronouns for future reference. 

“I think somebody has a crush.” A voice that Cody didn’t recognize said, and Cody turned, looking for the source. There were mainly brothers and a few of Admiral Darklighter’s naval officers in the hanger, but none of them were close enough to speak to him. 

“Who’s there?” Cody asked, stepping back into the corridor and looking along its length. There was nobody there either. 

“Wait.” The voice sounded as confused as Cody felt now. He resisted the urge to lift his bucket and scratch the skin graft on the back of his skull. “You can hear me?”

“What the kriff is going on?” Cody muttered, even quieter than he had spoken before. When General Ti had contacted him and asked if he wanted to be one of the test subjects for the removal of the inhibitor chips, if only because he was one of the few clones who actually knew about it, he hadn’t considered the possibility of hearing voices.

Panic welled up in him. He had been feeling better. Everything had felt clearer, and more real, more alive after he had had the chip removed, but what if that had been a mistake?

“Hey now.” There was a shimmer in the air and then a humanoid who looked vaguely like a brother with his black hair and dark red armour appeared in front of him. Something about the shape of his face also reminded Cody of his brothers. “There’s no need to panic.”

“Can Jedi become invisible?” Cody asked him, having lost his sense of propriety in the shock of what was going on. The symbol embossed on his gauntlets reminded Cody of the symbol for the Jedi Order, if he was remembering it right. 

“You can see me?”

“Yes?” Clearly they were both confused. 

“Well.” He raised an eyebrow in a manner that reminded Cody of Alpha-17 when one of the officer cadets had done something entirely unexpected. It was a little worrying honestly. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Are you a Jedi?” Cody asked. “Sir.” He managed to tack on the end. 

“Yes. My name is Etheree Grey, and I have also been dead for almost four thousand years.”

“Sir?” Cody was so confused. He wished that Obi-Wan was still here. 

“Is there somewhere you need to be? We can walk and talk.” Cody nodded and headed off down the hall. He risked a glance back over his shoulder, but no one in the hanger was paying him the slightest bit of attention. 

“Now,” the Jedi, despite claiming to be dead, was actually walking. Cody knew nothing about dead Jedi though. Maybe they could be dead and not dead at the same time. “I’m terribly sorry for disturbing you. I’ve been tasked by the Force to look after your General, so I suppose this is a boon, I really must be off, must make sure that Obi-Wan hasn’t done anything ill advised.”

“Okay.” Cody was still very confused about what was going on. “Sir, before you go. Uh, what are your pronouns?”

“She/her.” The Jedi smiled, and then vanished. Cody shook his head. He was still so confused, but he was sure that his General would be able to tell him if dead Jedi could talk to not dead people. He didn’t alert anyone. There was little they could do about invisible, possibly dead foes, even if they tried. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally skipped this chapter when I was posting things last week (?), so chapter 8 is going to be what used to be chapter 7. Sorry for the confusion, I am also very confused.

Anakin was surprised to find people in their quarters when she returned from teaching her robotics class. Thankfully the younglings had all been super good about her pronouns, just like Obi-Wan, despite the fact that he was still shutting her out much of the time, and Padmé. 

“Who are you?” The tall black woman that Anakin recognized from holos as Sable Dune immediately demanded as Anakin entered the quarters. 

“Anakin Skywalker, she/her.” Anakin said. 

“Where is your Master, and where is Obi-Wan?”

“He’s gone to give a briefing on our next campaign to his men.” Anakin said. “He’ll be back soon.”

“And where’s Obi-Wan? If your Master dropped him off on some war torn planet with no assistance again just so that he could take you on as a padawan, I swear to the Force, I will take his head off.” Anakin noticed the again and filled that away as something to ask Obi-Wan about at a later date. 

Anakin didn’t know how to answer that. She wasn’t sure who Sable thought was his teacher, possibly Qui Gon Jinn. She shrugged. 

“Listen, I need you to tell me where your Master is, or so help me, I will find out myself.” 

The door had opened, admitting Obi-Wan, and while neither Sable, nor Petr turned, Anakin caught his eyes. She pushed gently at their bond, hoping that he would let her in, and he did. 

_“She’s really mad at Qui Gon.”_ Anakin though at him, even as she said aloud: “Well, you won’t have to.”

Sable spun around, anger clear in the Force and in her words, before she stopped short. Obi-Wan was cordial in the face of her anger, and Anakin was once again reminded that they called him the Negotiator for a reason. Sometimes she managed to forget because he let her see the things that he never showed to the public. 

“Where’s the old man?” Sable asked. Anakin was pretty sure she meant Qui Gon. Obi-Wan winced, and Anakin wanted to jump to his defence even though she didn’t know enough about the situation to do it adequately. 

They spoke of people whose names Anakin didn’t recognize, and Sable got more angry, this time at the Council. Anakin had known intellectually that no one had forced Obi-Wan to take Anakin on as a padawan. Hearing Obi-Wan say that he had made that choice, and being able to feel his love for her through their bond, which he hadn’t shut all the way yet, made that fact really hit home. 

“I’m only a Knight because the Council made a decision forced by politics and war. I recognize that Obi-Wan still has a lot more to teach me.” She wished at times that Sheev had not forced their hand. Obi-Wan’s smile at that statement made Anakin think that perhaps he hadn’t realized that. 

“Right. Good. I’m sorry for yelling at you.” Sable turned partially towards Anakin. “Qui Gon never had a good track record with padawans, and with Obi-Wan specifically.”

“I kinda gathered that.” Anakin smiled, just a little, at her. “And also, now that we’ve gotten that passed us, can I have some actual introductions please?”

“Sorry,” Petr smiled back at Anakin, “I’m Knight Petr Licon, he/him, and I am glad that I am no longer the only young person around here.”

“Master Sable Dune, she/her. Again, I’m sorry for yelling at you.” 

“It’s okay. Being worried about Obi-Wan can do that to a person.” Sable laughed. 

“Speaking of young people,” she turned to Petr, “Xanatos is going to lose credits over this.”

“What did he bet on this time?” Obi-Wan sounded slightly amused, stepping around Sable to go and fill the kettle up. 

“After the whole Melida/Daan mess Feemor made an offhand comment about how he thought that you would end up with a padawan before either of them, because we thought that Tahl would take you on. Nobody thought that Qui Gon would take you back, and her lineage is a lot more well adjusted than we are.” They all laughed at that, more because it was true than because it was funny. Even just looking at herself, Anakin could tell it was true. She could also tell that she knew even less about Obi-Wan than she thought she did.

“Anyways, Xanatos put credits on it, and now he’s going to owe Feemor.” 

“That’s unfortunate for him.” Obi-Wan was smiling though, and their bond was further open than it had been since Obi-Wan had had his vision, so Anakin was okay with being left a little in the dark. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I done goofed, so here is what was chapter 7, I haven’t changed it, if you want to skip over it.

Etheree returned to her quarters in the non-space that the dead occupied more confused than she had felt in a while.

“You might want to see this.” Her Master, the one who had lived at the same time she had, Finbar Deon, said in greeting as she entered the main room. They gestured at the holoscreen that she had been using to keep an eye on Obi-Wan during his day. 

She stood in the middle of the room and watched as Obi-Wan imparted the knowledge of the death of their Master on his sister. 

“This is your new charge isn’t it?” Her other Master, Col Timar, who had looked over her in much the same way she was now taking care of Obi-Wan, asked as he entered the room. 

“Yes.” 

“You really need to take him on as your padawan.” Col said. “Also, I’ve met Jinn, and he is a very strange man.”

“In what way?” Finar asked. They were all still half watching Obi-Wan as he spoke to the Chancellor of the Republic. It was admirable that he would lie to the Chancellor of the Republic for his padawan. Etheree didn’t think much of politicians, but she knew that they could be powerful enemies to make. 

“He seems convinced that his padawans and his teachings are not his legacy. He disparages them at times, and seems to think that the fact that two of his children are trans is somehow a moral failing on his part.” Col shrugged. “I don’t think it’s the way that the Order is now, but what do I know, I’ve only been dead for seven thousand years.” Etheree laughed. 

“I’ve been dead for even less time, and I still don’t get them.” Etheree wandered away from the screen, only to be called back a moment later when Obi-Wan got a comm message from his Commander. Finbar toggled the angle around so that they could read over his shoulder. 

_Important question: can dead Jedi sometimes come back to talk to you?_

_They’re called Force Ghosts outside of the academic circles, and they do exist. Do I have to worry about your brothers telling stories to scare each other?_

_No sir. One of the brothers heard a Knight talking about it and he was a little freaked out._

_Please reassure your brother that he has nothing to worry about. They are not common and frequently not malicious, no matter what people say._

“Did the Commander see you earlier Ma?” Deav Acor, Etheree’s second padawan asked. Why the Order had moved away from the idea that Jedi were family, Etheree had no idea. The love versus attachment argument gave her a headache. Etheree smiled at her briefly before her brow creased into a frown again.

“Yes. It was odd. I hadn’t thought that he was Force sensitive, but he saw me. Also, you recall that I thought that he and Captain Rex were twins?” Deav made a noise of confirmation. “It appears that they are actually clones, as the entire section of the Army that I saw without their helmets on all looked almost identical.”

“I mean, I can see the advantages of that.” Deav said. “The legal implications must be massive though.”

“That is much more your area of expertise than it is mine.” Etheree said. “But it does seem likely. I think their genetic donor is a Mandalorian.” 

“One of your relatives do you suppose?” Deav asked.

“It’s possible.” There was enough time between them that it was possible that an enormous chunk of the people on Mandalore were related to her. She ruffled Deav’s hair gently, and then headed off to double check that she had everything she needed to ask Obi-Wan to become her padawan. He would get along well with Deav and her padawan, Inish, both of whom loved to do research.

She thought about what Col had said about Jinn, about how he hadn’t thought of his padawans as his legacy, and about how Obi-Wan learned quickly and kept up well, and wondered if she would be able to talk to the man without punching him in the face. Both of Etheree’s padawans had been such a joy to teach, and Obi-Wan would be no different. 


	9. Chapter 9

Anakin truly hadn’t meant to be snooping through Obi-Wan’s work. She really hadn’t. He had handed his datapad to her with two files open, and so what if she had accidentally flipped to the second one. 

Obi-Wan had been researching the GAR Bills, and the sort of shit that he had uncovered made Anakin wonder how it had ever gotten through the Senate. 

What it contained scared her to the bones, so she had made arrangements to meet with the head of the Education Corps in the Temple. It just so happened that the only time that she was free was the last day before they were sent on campaign.

Members of the Order were allowed to get university degrees. A lot of them didn’t, or if they did it was in history or religion, or something else exceedingly nerdy. Anakin wondered if Obi-Wan had ever gotten a degree. It seemed like a very him thing to do. 

She pushed the thought aside as she knocked on the door to Master Ala Yems’ office. 

“Come in.” The office that Anakin walked into was a bright space, with lots of windows, and a collection of plants, which was something that always made her think of Obi-Wan. “Knight Skywalker, it’s good to see you. I’ve heard you’ve been taking on some of our robotics courses for the younglings.”

“Yes.” Anakin smiled. “It’s a lot of fun, but that’s not actually what I’m here about?” Sometimes she wished that she could make a transfer to the Edu-Corps, but she wasn’t going to leave Obi-Wan alone in the middle of a war.

“Oh?” Master Yems gestured her into the seat across from her desk. “What would you like to talk about?”

“Um, I know now is not really the best time, but I’ve been considering getting a degree for a while, and I’d like to know what kinds of things I’ll need to do for the application process.”

“What kind of degree would you like to do?” Master Yems asked, opening up applications on her datapad, which was suspended above her desk. “Engineering?”

“Law, actually.” Master Yems’ eyes, all six of them, widened in surprise, but she was still smiling. 

“Of course, you are Obi-Wan’s padawan.” She chuckled softly. “Step one, be more specific. What type of law?” 

“Sentient Rights.” 

“Well, most of the time, a Sentient Rights degree would require a preliminary degree, however, given that you are a full member of the Order, you can skip that step. There are however, essays that will have to be written and forms that you have to fill out. I will give you that information now, and I will look into being able to do courses while away from Coruscant.”

“Thank you.” Anakin was so relieved that she hadn’t been shut down. Obi-Wan was trying his best, and he knew a lot of political movers, but they would need someone with actually expertise to get any bullshit through the Senate and Anakin didn’t trust anyone else.

“Of course. Here.” She handed her a datastick. “That should be everything you need to complete the application process. May the Force be with you Knight Skywalker.”

“May the Force be with you Master Yems.” Anakin stood and bowed to Master Yems and left. 

Anakin sat in the garden where she was to be meeting Padmé, and scrolled through the information she needed to deal with in order to apply for law school. When Padmé walked into the garden, Anakin looked up and smiled at her. 

“Hi Ani.” Padmé sat down next to her on the bench and pressed a kiss to her jaw. “What are you working on?”

“Uh.” Anakin blanked. “I’m considering going to university.”

“For engineering?” Padmé asked. It made sense that everyone assumed that about her. She really did prefer a hands on approach to the world, and it made her glad that despite Obi-Wan’s love of books, he was really the same way. She had seen even in the last few days how he was applying his research to the real world with the armour he was working on.

“No. Sentient Rights Law.” Padmé did a double take before quickly hiding it away. 

“We always need more Sentient Rights experts.” Padmé said. “If you ever want me to read over your essays, I am willing to do that.” Anakin nodded. 

“Thank you.” She remembered when they had first come to Coruscant, how whenever she would have time to see Padmé she was working on a new project for her own university degree. “I’m glad I got to see you today. We’re leaving tonight.”

“I’m glad I got to see you too.” 


End file.
